pendragonman
Absent Friends Margrave
I'm having a bit of a conundrum. How do I create weird and truly alien weapon systems (starship, personal, and military) for use in MTU. How have any of you approached this issue?
How do you make really "alien" weapons in YTU?
- Thread starter pendragonman
- Start date
Well, a major problem with what you're thinking of is that traveller uses "real physics" as much as possible, and since any alien in the traveller universe lives in a universe where real physics apply any weapons they design will have to be based on the same laws of physics as "human" weapons.
Thus they're likely to basically do the same things, I.E. propel a projectile that either uses kinetic energy or explosives, or project an energy beam, usually photonic energy. (A laser)
Have you ever seen hivers and their personal weapons? The hivers sure as blood are alien, and their weapons sure look funky, but they do the same things imperial weapons do in the end.
In one of his truly excellent star trek novels, "World without end", Joe Haldeman had an alien weapon that consisted of a poison dart launched from a sling. The alien part was that the poison was a deadly substance to the aliens, sodium chloride.
Humans know it better as table salt, and asides from being painful and irritating it was useless against humans because it was so alien.
I suppose if you must have a really weird, alien weapon that's unlike anything humans have a race may have developed something based on artificial gravity that uses a focused gravity beam to damage the target via rapid acceleration, I.E. a massive, powerful jerk forward that could cause injury and make some fall on his face. A more effective version might reverse the grav effect and shove someone back violently, since grav tech is common in traveller I suppose someone could make a backpack version and find a way to focus it into a coherent beam without violating the basic philosophy of traveller too much.
Of course if they can make a repulsive gravity beam they may use it to propel projectiles.
I start with physics. The alien weapons wouldn't necessarily be alien to our physics but not standard CT cannon weapons. I postulate developments/exploitations of the fundamental forces under the standard model to go beyond canon. Here's sorta how I organize them, I don't have my notes here so I will just list what I recall:
Electromagnetic Force: Charged beams and plasmas. The laser is the prime example of using the force mediating particle, the photon, as a weapon. The weapons disrupt the electrons of the material hit causing Culomb explosions, as well as heat.
Weak Nuclear Force: W and Z bosons are used as weapons. It can effect neutrinos (used in neutrino sensors) and makes materials it hit release beta radiation, besides thermal (explosion) energy.
Strong Nuclear Force: Helps hold the nucleus together, weapons that disrupt it produce mini-nuclear explosions and lots of radiation. Mesons are the force mediators that get all the attention (yes I know it's gluons but the meson pair aspect fits well with canon).
Gravity: Do with this one as you will. Traveller postulates making articifical gravity and other gravity manipulations. Pick the theory you like, is it particulate with gravitons and anti-gravitons, some funky Higgs field thing. In any case weapons using this force, especially in a high frequency oscialltor fashion, might shred a target or rip open stress fractures in it. Such weapons may have a low signature.
CT has pretty much only EM and Strong Force based weapons. Lasers only provide coherence of certian of the properties of photons, one could imagine more degrees of cohrence to produce better "lasers" which for historical reasons one might call phasers even if they don't behave like those in Star Trek.
This doesn't even begin to touch the discoveries in physics that must have come along with the discovery of jump drive.
Electromagnetic Force: Charged beams and plasmas. The laser is the prime example of using the force mediating particle, the photon, as a weapon. The weapons disrupt the electrons of the material hit causing Culomb explosions, as well as heat.
Weak Nuclear Force: W and Z bosons are used as weapons. It can effect neutrinos (used in neutrino sensors) and makes materials it hit release beta radiation, besides thermal (explosion) energy.
Strong Nuclear Force: Helps hold the nucleus together, weapons that disrupt it produce mini-nuclear explosions and lots of radiation. Mesons are the force mediators that get all the attention (yes I know it's gluons but the meson pair aspect fits well with canon).
Gravity: Do with this one as you will. Traveller postulates making articifical gravity and other gravity manipulations. Pick the theory you like, is it particulate with gravitons and anti-gravitons, some funky Higgs field thing. In any case weapons using this force, especially in a high frequency oscialltor fashion, might shred a target or rip open stress fractures in it. Such weapons may have a low signature.
CT has pretty much only EM and Strong Force based weapons. Lasers only provide coherence of certian of the properties of photons, one could imagine more degrees of cohrence to produce better "lasers" which for historical reasons one might call phasers even if they don't behave like those in Star Trek.
This doesn't even begin to touch the discoveries in physics that must have come along with the discovery of jump drive.
Guess it depends on what you want the weapon to do, and at what TL.
For low TL you could get some interesting hand-to-hand stuff. Droyne using crossbow-launched nets to snare the wings of opposing warriors and prevent flight (while hoping they can't teleport over and stick you anyway), K'Kree taking out one of their own with something like bolas or a lasso that would be pretty rough on someone charging at full gallop.
But for low tech, its easy.
Aztech obsidian-edged club = gladius = axe = scimitar (i.e. they all take a nasty slice)
mammoth bone = baseball bat = flanged mace = tonfa (i.e. they all make a nasty thunk on the noggin)
Its obviously more complicated at higher tech levels for two main reasons:
1. Humans (and thus our combined perspectives) like to project things at each other (arrows, javalins, bullets, ICBMs, etc.).
2. There are a limited number of ways to hurl things at folks at this particular point in space/time.
But, some ideas for "alien" weapon systems:
(Warning! I'm not a gearhead, and this may be more Heresy than Canon. May be? Heck, I'm sure it is!)
1. Tasers instead of bullets. Maybe the critters that use them are more easily damaged by electric current than humans are.
2. Focused sound waves that disorientate or deafen rather than kill outright.
3. Powerful electromagenetic fields instead of artillery to stun, distract or disorient groups of opponents.
4. Ouright chemical warfare (instead of shooting, the Xazanagidp's throw non-persistent nerve gas grenades at each other).
5. Maybe alien guys with a lot of magesium in their system shoot each other with aluminum bullets...
6. Higher TL - munitions that reconfigure themselves in the millisecond before impact to enhance their effect (i.e. pointed for armor, flatten out for meat, etc.)
7. Ancients' Weapons - Poof! You're dead!
8. Downright alien - 234sfgDFasaaa wants to kill you for stealing a picture of a chicken that it was going to trade to Zhodani spies. It poisons you and is willing to wait for you to die from organ failure in six months because, well, it's an alien.
9. Downright scary - micronuke recoiless rifles. All the blast of a FGMP plus radioactive fallout...
10. Living weapons - like a gun that shoots a thin capsule full of, I dunno, flesh-eating bacteria or some kind of brain-eating parasite.
11. Starships that shoot a huge missile with a pre-programmed malfunctioning jump drive and a huge magnet attached to it. Hit your target and make it misjump. Doesn't matter where it goes - it's probably screwed up when it gets there. If that doesn't work, the rest of the missile explodes while in contact with the hull.
12. A Virushi armed with a dart gun firing syringes filled with quick acting anti-anxiety medication or outright tranquilizers.
13. Relativistic sand casters that abrade away the hull of an opposing ship.
14. Computer virus to take over a jump-capable ship, drive it to inside the 100-diameter limit, and jump. Kind like 11. Heck, a lot like 11. I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel now...
Anyway, probably not what you're looking for, but hope it'll help.
Best,
Will
Joe Haldeman's book
Thing; it's been thirty years since I cracked that book, but I don't recall the NaCl sling dart. Was that the one with the flying bats that had ribbons to designate rank or somesuch?
To create an alien weapon; as long as you have the rules right for its effect you can simply dismiss the engineeing aspect. As long as the desired effect comes about in the rules, and the players are operating their issued equipemtn with appropriate skills and so forth, then you're doing okay.
In the past I've put my players into some precarious circumstances that, if analyzed no the surface, would seem to defy the laws of physics. But, as in say "Half Life" where Gordon Freeman's MP3 still functions as an MP3 in Xen, so did my player's equipment in their strange surroundings.
Thing; it's been thirty years since I cracked that book, but I don't recall the NaCl sling dart. Was that the one with the flying bats that had ribbons to designate rank or somesuch?
To create an alien weapon; as long as you have the rules right for its effect you can simply dismiss the engineeing aspect. As long as the desired effect comes about in the rules, and the players are operating their issued equipemtn with appropriate skills and so forth, then you're doing okay.
In the past I've put my players into some precarious circumstances that, if analyzed no the surface, would seem to defy the laws of physics. But, as in say "Half Life" where Gordon Freeman's MP3 still functions as an MP3 in Xen, so did my player's equipment in their strange surroundings.
In "world without end" the natives, I think they were collectively known as "Chatilians", were horribly allergic so salt and in fact when a sweaty human touched one it left a blister on it's skin. They used the darts in the cell they were holding the enterprise party in, and mccoy laughed when he realized they were "poisoned" with salt.
Then again the chatilians ate food laced with arsenic, so it all comes down to biochemistry.
pendragonman
Absent Friends Margrave
Thanks
Thanks for all the ideas. We'll just see what kind of heck Santa brings for my adventurers this Christmas...
Thanks for all the ideas. We'll just see what kind of heck Santa brings for my adventurers this Christmas...
psi amplifiers, of whatever effect, are always good. psi-based misdirection can be unpleasant.
sonics or lights that have psychological effects can be useful. they need not be within normal human sensory range.
paint and other sensor-opaque substances are always good vs faceplates, scopes, lenses, etc. a simple paint bomb won't kill a squad of battle-dress marines, but it may render them combat-ineffective. webbing is good too.
swarms, of biologics or robots or whatever, work well. shoot 'em all you want, but here come the rest of 'em.
emp and electronic warfare provide many opportunities. destroyed sensors, degraded weapons. blocked comms are always fun when they're the only means of communication between suited-up squad members. and false combat data can be hard to detect and overcome.
Beams that just cause damage / melting / explosions, even through a wall, no cover can stop it.
Weapons that sap STR, DEX or END, straight, till unc.
Nano weapons, a pool of liquid that flows uphill and eats away, starting at the boots.
A thread that connects from an organ in the head of the NPC to the victim, mind controlling them, once established acts as monofilament wire.
A being that "Takes over" the PC, via vampiric domination, some other method. Some players quit after this.
A weapon that affects sleep, dreams, and the perception of reality.
Playing along, describing things, gets weirder and weirder, until they PCs realize that they live in an illusory world or alternate dimension. Even more like to quit after one of these.
A cancer gun, that causes cells to mutate ultra-rapidly.
To me, it's all flavor and game effect, so to make it alien, make it NOT slug / missile / bomb. Standard armor / cover / duck and move just doesn't work.
Weapons that sap STR, DEX or END, straight, till unc.
Nano weapons, a pool of liquid that flows uphill and eats away, starting at the boots.
A thread that connects from an organ in the head of the NPC to the victim, mind controlling them, once established acts as monofilament wire.
A being that "Takes over" the PC, via vampiric domination, some other method. Some players quit after this.
A weapon that affects sleep, dreams, and the perception of reality.
Playing along, describing things, gets weirder and weirder, until they PCs realize that they live in an illusory world or alternate dimension. Even more like to quit after one of these.
A cancer gun, that causes cells to mutate ultra-rapidly.
To me, it's all flavor and game effect, so to make it alien, make it NOT slug / missile / bomb. Standard armor / cover / duck and move just doesn't work.
The Modular Weapon
This is a play on the rubick's cube and plain old mechanics; the alien weapon has several pieces, yet they can be put together in any combination. Most don't work, but:
-put together one way creates a powerful HAND HELD meson weapon,
-put together another way creates a sensitive sensor device,
-yet another way will create an explosion capable of removing the crust of a planet, and
-another way makes a nifty microwave oven.
Of course, the varieties of weapons/devices on your machine may vary. Oh, and its not that big all together, or heavy. And there is no operator's manual, never has been.
Bwahahahaha!
This is a play on the rubick's cube and plain old mechanics; the alien weapon has several pieces, yet they can be put together in any combination. Most don't work, but:
-put together one way creates a powerful HAND HELD meson weapon,
-put together another way creates a sensitive sensor device,
-yet another way will create an explosion capable of removing the crust of a planet, and
-another way makes a nifty microwave oven.
Of course, the varieties of weapons/devices on your machine may vary. Oh, and its not that big all together, or heavy. And there is no operator's manual, never has been.
Bwahahahaha!
Similar threads
